Raspberry Pi

[j4cbo]

The Raspberry Pi is cool, but it's pretty awkward to actually use in a project because of its size and performance - you can look at it as either a really limited slow computer, or a really inconvenient unwieldy microcontroller.

[james]

Well, for what I paid for it, it's really something just for me to play with.

I wrote an nice Linux API quite some time ago called ezfb that lets a programmer work with direct rendering graphics into the video RAM. The first versions of LaserBoy were built on top of this.

I think I'm going to crack into that old code and freshen it up a bit and see if any other Pi programmers might like it.

James.

[mrfloppy]

i hope one day i can put pi's in projectors and upload new showfiles over wifi/BT/ethernet
zero touch, and only a power cable on the pj, wouldn't that be nice...

guess same as the SDcard projectors, only i dont want to swap sd cards, (especially when u have to lower it from the ceiling to get to it)
or pull one out to update the show...

[mixedgas]

Take a look at the "Beagle" family of boards. Not much more cost, and a heck of a lot of cpu power compared to Pi.

Steve

[mrfloppy]

€27,40 for a pi or 73 for a beaglebone, ill stick to my pi

untill i get a much better payroll :P

[james]

I finally got my Pi the other day. It took a bit longer than it should have, considering it was coming from Detroit.

Anyway.... They forgot my HDMI to digital video adapter, so for the time being, I'm stuck having to hook it up to my big screen TV.

That's not exactly a good place for me to use it for development. But it is really NEATO!

Once I get it down in my basement with all of my other stuff, I will OWN THIS THING!

I have already installed Boost libs and libSDL and with no modifications what-so-ever, I got LaserBoy to compile and run!

There is some weird issue with the fact that it runs the X server in 16 bit packed pixels, but I know what that's all about and I know I can make that work perfectly.

I tried running LaserBoy in the console with no X server, but that doesn't seem to work. That's some kind of SDL issue.

I think I can get around that to, if needed.

The next step is to hook up the SND8 USB sound device and start playing some waves!

Then I need to make a web server interface for sending data to it and controlling it remotely.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeee !!!!!

[shrad]

that's great

may I ask to be part of your test material? I have a Pi and the need to put it to use

[james]

ABSOLUTELY!

I just got an HDMI to digital video adapter today. So I moved my Pi right next to my main workstation.

I should have a new release of LaserBoy soon with instructions for compiling and running it on the Pi.

James.

[shrad]

I have a generic USB soundcard but it doesn't attract me... would you have the opportunity to output binary data via SPI or GPIO?

[james]

At this point in time, LaserBoy is Generic C++ code. It is specifically designed to run in as many platforms as possible. It does not make any kind of connection to any kind of DAC. It reads and writes files. One of the file types it reads and writes is multi-channel wave.

Once I get things going on the Pi, I will definitely look into writing code that is for Linux only and possibly look at using some of the unique features of the Pi.

One step at a time!

James.